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Monday, Nov. 4, when the Exchange re-opened there were more sellers than buyers but none were frenetic. Toward noon prices climbed, then dropped again. In general stocks closed lower than Thursday. U. S. Steel closed at 180, Radio at 43¼, General Motors at 45¼. The market except at the very opening was dull as though it were tired. But it seemed to rest securely. Stock Exchange Governors ordered the Exchange closed after 1 o'clock Wednesday, Thursday, Friday; all day Saturday. Tuesday was a legal holiday (election day). Thus was further rest insured.
Friday there were no quotations nor Saturday for the Exchange was closed. Clerks who had passed many a sleepless night, slept, then returned to clean up the greatest amount of work which brokerage houses have ever had in so short a time. In the hurly-burly many an error had been made. The clerks had to discover them, rectify them. But in the Stock Exchange Friday and Saturday there was quiet.
Thus did Confidence win its subtle race against Panic.
It was the intangible change in feeling which saved the U. S. from complete surrender to what could properly be called a Values Panic, but there was nothing intangible about the factors which had worked for the change. Behind the group of bankers who met day after day at No. 23 Wall Street there glittered the world's greatest single pool of liquid wealth. How wide, how deep it might be, none but they could tell, for no man outside the doors of No. 23 Wall Street knows the resources of the House of Morgan. Loosely, journalists spoke of a grand total of $10,000,000,000* Over such a mighty sea raged the winds of Panic.